Starting your own business can be incredibly gratifying, but is also full of challenges. Based on my experiences over the last 10 years, I’d like to share these additional five lessons learned on what works and what doesn’t work to help manage and grow a successful services business. (For the first 5 tips, see is part 1 of this article.)

The average 3D printer is a hardworking machine. While the print head zips along the X, Y, and Z axis, it can’t zip too fast, or vibration will cause degradation in the print quality. This is particularly true of smaller, more lightweight printers used by consumers and small businesses. Motors have gotten faster in recent years, but there’s only so fast they can go before the machine begins to “skip counts,” which results in layer registration errors. This can result in wavy “ghosted” surfaces on the printed item at best and comically (and costly) misprinted mistakes at worst.

Industrial IoT edge gateways represent an emerging product category and key technology for connecting both legacy controllers and edge devices to the Internet of Things (IoT). Along with integrating a variety of protocols for networking, they provide resources for managing data storage and analytics, along with enabling secure data flow between edge devices and cloud services.

Researchers at the Department of Energy (DoE) have made a breakthrough in harvesting thermoelectric energy using carbon nanotube thin films that could be used to power portable electronics and sensors for the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable technology.

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THE DRIVE TO FLEXIBLE AUTOMATION

THE DRIVE TO FLEXIBLE AUTOMATION

With today’s trend toward high mix, low volume manufacturing, the need for more flexible and smarter automation is paramount. This video by National Instruments explores how the combination of robotics, measurements and vision can help boost productivity.